


home is what the heart protects

by emperor_bell



Series: your home is with me [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, I just have a lot of feelings about murphy, I swear it was, Pregnancy, This was supposed to be memori, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 17:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11131578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emperor_bell/pseuds/emperor_bell
Summary: "John Murphy had lived a hundred lifetimes in his year on the ground and yet still, somehow, after a year of living in space again, nineteen year old John Murphy hears the word “dad” and his first thought is 'I’m too young.'"I'm obsessed with the thought of Emori having a baby in space, and I set out to write Memori parents. Instead I wrote 2k words of John Murphy feelings. Enjoy.





	home is what the heart protects

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my Supportive Recho Fam^tm for yelling at me to write this for the last two weeks. And as always big thanks to my best writer pal @stayingwhelmed for editing all my punctuation errors.

John Murphy was seventeen the first time he was accused of murder. A little girl drove his knife into the throat of the chancellor’s son, and he was hung for a crime he didn’t commit and driven out of the only semblance of home he could possibly know on this screwed up planet.

He was seventeen the first time he did murder someone. Tortured and driven by his desire for revenge, he’d held the fabric over their heads until they stopped breathing. They were kids, he was a kid, and the Earth had already made murderers out of them. 

He was seventeen the first time he met the love of his life, and in some ways he knew he was lucky for that, even if she stole from him and held a knife to his throat.

He figured he was probably eighteen—they all lost track of the days at some point—the first time he considered taking his own life in the bunker that became a prison.

By eighteen, John Murphy was standing back up in space, watching the world burn.

John Murphy had lived a hundred lifetimes in his year on the ground and yet still, somehow, after a year of living in space again, nineteen year old John Murphy hears the word “dad” and his first thought is _I’m too young._

A million voices shouted at him that he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t deserve this, that there was no way he could raise a child to be any better than he was, but when he looked into the terrified eyes of the girl he loved, he knew that right now, he had to be the strong one, the confident one. 

“Hey,” he said, gently taking Emori’s face in his hands. She was shaking, and he forced his hands to remain still. “How much have we been through together? You and me against the world, right? We’re survivors; we can face anything together.”

She shook her head, dark eyes watery. “It won’t just be about us, John. How can we raise a baby? I’ve never had a family or a home; my parents threw me out like trash. Will I even know how to love my own child?” 

Anger flared up in Murphy at the people in Emori’s life who should’ve loved her, and instead made her feel she was unworthy and incapable of love. 

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, not wanting Emori to misunderstand his anger as being directed at her.

“My mother was raised the same as everyone else on the Ark,” he started, forcing himself to keep his eyes fixed on hers rather than avoiding eye contact. These weren’t things he told people. “She had friends, parents who cared about her, the whole shebang, and she was a fine parent when I was kid. But when my dad died, instead of pulling it together for her son who had just been saved from the brink of death, she spent the rest of her life drinking and wasting her life away, all while blaming me for his death.” He shook his head. “What I’m saying is, how you were raised doesn’t make you good or bad. Just because you had a decent life doesn’t mean you can be a decent parent. You’ve had one of the worst lots in life possible, but you came out of it stronger, and you’ll make a fantastic mother.”

“How do you know?” She asked, her fear still written all over her face.

“You’ve always been a fighter, Emori. You fought to survive, and you fight for the people you love. This kid will know you love them because they’ll know you’d do anything for them, I’m sure of that. I’m sure of _you._ You’re my family, you and little John junior.”

She giggled a little, and he smiled in triumph.

“What about your dad?” 

He looked away, considering asking what she meant just to avoid the question a little longer.

Instead, “My dad saved my life, and he was killed for it.”

He felt her hand on his cheek, turning his face back to look at her. “It wasn’t your fault, John, you know that.”

He shrugged, “It was and it wasn’t. It doesn’t really matter. He knew the choice he was making when he stole the medicine for me. He knew he’d die for me; it was what he wanted. I’d do it for you,” he took her right hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers, “and I’d do it for our child too. And I haven’t even met the little misfit yet.”

“Misfit?” She smirked.

“He’s our kid, Emori. Are we expecting anything else?”

She laughed. “Or she.”

He grinned.

“We can do this,” She said, her voice no longer full of fear.

“We can do this.”

***

He really doesn’t know if he can do this.

He can’t say it to Emori, not with her relying on him to be strong, but he was scared out of his ever-loving mind.

She’d fallen asleep shortly after their conversation, and he’d managed to slip out of the room without being noticed. Without even really meaning to, he’d found himself in the rations room. And from there, it hadn’t been a far jump to end up slumped against the wall, one of the few bottles of alcohol scavenged from the remains of the Ark slipping out of his hand.

Bellamy walked in on him like that, taking in the scene and shaking his head with an exasperated sigh. 

“Murphy, what is going on here? We agreed to save the alcohol.”

Bellamy was giving him that quintessential stern dad look and Murphy almost laughed. Or maybe he did laugh. His brain wasn’t processing things well at the moment.

“But it’s a special occasion, Bell.” He slurred, grinning lopsidedly at him. “I’m gonna be a dad.” He threw his hands in the air clumsily, dropping the plastic bottle in the process. He stared at the spilled liquid longingly for a moment before shrugging and turning his attention back to Bellamy.

Bellamy’s jaw had gone slack and he was staring at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Aren’t you gonna congratulate me?” Murphy asked after a long silence.

“I—are you sure?” Bellamy stuttered.

Murphy shrugged again. “Guess there’s no way to be totally sure. Emori thinks so.”

Bellamy nodded, finally breaking out of whatever trance the sudden announcement had put him in. “Wow,” he said, coming to sit against the wall next to him.

Bellamy reached out and picked up the discarded bottle. “Cheers,” he said, drinking the little that hadn’t spilled onto the floor. They’d have to clean that up later, he thought foggily. Can’t be leaving messes like that around when he has a kid.

They sat there in companionable silence for a while, and Murphy wondered if he’d ever be able to do this like Bellamy, to know when someone needed to talk, or to be yelled at, or to just to have someone sitting next to them. Those were dad things, weren't they?

“I haven’t actually had that much to drink,” he admitted, breaking the silence. “That bottle wasn’t even full.”

“I know,” Bellamy said. “I did inventory today. I would’ve yelled at you if you’d taken more.”

“You wouldn’t have, not with me drunk and miserable.”

“I would’ve, tomorrow.”

Murphy smiled a little, then shook his head and focused his gaze on his lap. “What am I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna have a kid,” Bellamy said, and Murphy shot him a well-meaning “ _duh_ ” look. Bellamy rolled his eyes, “Let me finish,” he said.

“You’re gonna have a kid, and you’re gonna realize that whatever intense protectiveness you’ve known up until this point—saving Emori from the City of Light or Praimfaya, everything that you risked and had to do to accomplish that, it’ll pale in comparison to what you’d do for that kid.

“You’ll never be able to make a selfish decision again, because every move you make will have an effect on them, and you’ll be aware of that every second of the day. If, Heaven forbid, the day ever comes that you have to make a decision that puts the woman you love and the child you raised on different sides, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll pick the kid. Even though it still hurts like hell.”

Bellamy had a faraway look in his eyes and Murphy smirked despite himself.

“What?” Bellamy asked.

“Clarke and Octavia,” he said; there was no use beating around the bush.

Bellamy’s jaw clenched and he looked away. Clarke’s voice had crackled through the comm radio a week before. It had cut out every few seconds and the rough connection had made it so they could only understand a few words ( _days, nightblood, alive_ ), but it was enough to know it was undoubtedly her. Bellamy had spent the rest of the day staring out the window at the Earth, no longer burning but still alight with radiation. No one had mentioned it. It just was. 

“Yeah well, that’s a little different,” Bellamy said finally, “but you get the idea.”

“Yeah,” Murphy said, “you're right. You've always been so good at this, you know?”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows, as much in confusion as surprise, “What do you mean?”

“Being a dad. Taking care of people. You basically raised Octavia, and the 100 never would've survived without you. I don't know how to do that.” He paused, and Bellamy was quiet, waiting for him to continue. “I don't deserve this, Bell. I've done too much screwed up sh-”

“Stuff,” Bellamy interrupted. “Watch your language, you're gonna have a kid.”

Murphy rolled his eyes and chuckled despite himself. “I'm not good enough to be a dad.”

Bellamy stared at him for a long moment before turning to face forward again. “Maybe you're not. And you probably don't deserve it. But who here does? We all did screwed up _stuff_ back on Earth.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Bellamy shot him a glare before continuing, “What I’m _saying_ is that maybe you don't know a thing about being a dad. That'll come. And none of us deserve this, but it happened, and it happened to you. You’re gonna have a kid and it's gonna be surrounded by the most unexpected people to be their family, and you're going to get through this, because you won't be alone. Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it.”

He did. And to some degree, maybe he always had. He’d meant what he said to Emori back in their room. They could do this, and he knew that he, John Murphy, ever the survivor, would take a bullet in a heartbeat if it meant his kid lived. 

_Who would've thought._

***

They sort of accidentally told everyone else a few days later. Being that there was very little to do up in space, the seven of them spent a lot of time sprawled out on the floor telling every story under the sun. It always started out lighthearted, the delinquents would tell stories about their first few weeks on the ground, stories about all of their vastly different upbringings. But, as could be expected, it usually got heavy before they were through. Names were brought up of people whose deaths would always be fresh in their minds; experiences from one story would lead directly to another that almost got them killed. Their lives just didn’t have much lighthearted left.

A lot of the time on those days, conversation would fade out until Bellamy started talking, telling them stories from long before any of them were born, myths and history lessons that, in another life, they never would’ve sat still for. But in this one, well, in this life everything was a welcome distraction.

It was at one of those times, before Bellamy had the chance to distract them, that the news broke. Monty had just been laughing about a prank he and Jasper had pulled on the Ark, but the laughter had dissolved into a tense silence as the actual heaviness of the situation once again set in for all of them. It was in that first minute of silence that, before he could think better of it, Murphy blurted it out.

“Emori’s pregnant.”

In a flash, all eyes in the room were on him. Emori looked at him, stunned, and he shot her an apologetic smile. They hadn’t really discussed telling everyone, but he figured they’d have to eventually.

To everyone’s surprise, Echo spoke first. “Congratulations to you both,” she said, and her smile was sincere.

With the initial shocked silence broken, everyone else chimed in with their own congratulations. Monty, who was sitting on the floor a few feet from Murphy, sat up to reach over and clap him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be a dad, man, that’s awesome.”

Murphy grinned, and it was one of his most genuine smiles since Emori had told him. Harper asked how Emori was feeling and Raven said she was gonna make the kid her engineering assistant, and the surrealness of what was happening started to sink in.

John Murphy had done a lot of things in his life to survive, many he regretted and some he didn’t. He’d hurt people, including everyone currently in the room. While he couldn’t yet entertain the thought that he was redeemed, looking around the room at the way everyone was smiling and talking about his unborn son or daughter like a member of the family, he realized he was forgiven, and that was more than he could’ve ever asked for.


End file.
